Nelson and Willock feature as Arsenal beat Bayern Munich on penalties

Arsenal’s pre-season preparations stepped up a gear today as Arsene Wenger’s side took on Bayern Munich in China.

Bayern dominated for much of the game and took the lead through a penalty from Robert Lewandowski early on after Ainsley Maitland-Niles had conceded the spot-kick.

However, Arsenal improved following the introduction of several youngsters and pulled level in the dying moments courtesy of a header from Alex Iwobi, which saw the game finish 1-1.

Arsenal then prevailed on penalties, with Juan Bernat seeing his effort saved by Emiliano Martinez.

In all, what threatened to be a disappointing game turned out to be a positive experience in terms of the result, but, most importantly, the youngsters involved will have learned a considerable amount from playing against such a high quality side.

In the first half Maitland-Niles and Krystian Bielik struggled to cope with the threat of Franck Ribery, although Maitland-Niles improved a little when he was switched to right centre-back in the second period.

Reiss Nelson, Eddie Nketiah, Cohen Bramall and Joe Willock also received run-outs and, although they weren’t able to make as big an impact as they did during the previous games, the youngsters were full of enthusiasm and will benefit immensely from playing in this fixture.

Next up is a game against another high-profile opponent in Chelsea on Saturday.